A non-canonical landscape of the microRNA system

Abstract

Microribonucleic acids, best known as microRNAs or miRNAs, are small, non-coding RNAs with important regulatory roles in eukaryotic cells. Here, I present a broad review on highly relevant but generally non-depicted features of miRNAs, among which stand out the non-conventional miRNA seed sites, the unusual messenger RNA (mRNA) target regions, the non-canonical miRNA-guided mechanisms of gene expression regulation, and the recently identified new class of miRNA ligands. Furthermore, I address the miRNA uncommon genomic location, transcription, and subcellular localization. Altogether, these unusual features and roles place the miRNA system as a very diverse, complex, and intriguing biological mechanism.

Deregulation of protein translation control, a potential game-changing hypothesis for Parkinson's disease pathogenesis

“…The kinaseactivating LRRK2 mutant G2019S is reported to increase translation activity in Drosophila [20,21] using both direct and indirect measures for overall translation activity and protein translation reporter systems. In a related mechanism, LRRK2 interacts with argonaute proteins [24], which are essential components of miRNA machinery, regulating protein expression levels by inhibition of translation or degradation of mRNA [25,26]. Therefore, LRRK2 may intervene in regulating protein expression via multiple mechanisms.Interestingly, several recessive PD genes such as PRKN, PINK1, and DJ-1, which cause early-onset forms of PD, are also reported to influence protein translation.…”

Literature review of baseline information to support the risk assessment of RNAi‐based GM plants

“…There is large variety of miRNA-target duplex structures, which include seedless interactions (reviewed in (Cipolla, 2014;Seok et al, 2016a)). The existence of seedless interactions explains reports that perfect seed pairing is not a generally reliable predictor for miRNA-target interactions (Didiano and Hobert, 2006).…”

microRNAs in lipoprotein and lipid metabolism: from biological function to clinical application

“…Particularly, miRNAs have been found to regulate the stability of nuclear transcripts (e.g. mRNAs, long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) or pri-miRNAs), induce epigenetic alterations at specific gene promoters, and likely modulate alternative splicing events in the nuclear compartment [22][23][24][25][26]. Moreover, two studies have reported few specific miRNAs as ligands for toll-like receptor (TLRs; TLR7 in mice and TLR8 in humans) activation [27,28].…”

“…Although the central role of miRNAs is to negatively regulate protein synthesis, other functions of miRNAs are emerging (reviewed in [22] and [23]). Particularly, miRNAs have been found to regulate the stability of nuclear transcripts (e.g.…”